Abstract
This paper examines how automation and digital technologies have reshaped gendered employment outcomes in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment (RMG) sector before and after COVID-19. Drawing on Socio-Technical Systems Theory, it analyses 42 semi-structured interviews with female garment workers and male supervisors/managers in export-oriented factories in Dhaka and Gazipur. Focusing on access to automation-related training, leadership roles, and perceived job security, the findings reveal a persistent socio-technical misalignment: technical upgrading accelerated—especially during the pandemic—while the social system failed to adapt in gender-inclusive ways. Women remained concentrated in low-skill, easily automatable roles, were excluded from formal training, and faced heightened insecurity during crisis-driven restructuring, whereas men dominated supervisory positions, accessed training, and retained job security. The paper advances a justice-oriented STST account of crisis-accelerated technological change and contributes rare qualitative evidence from a Global South manufacturing context to debates on automation, work, and gender inequality.